


Bargain

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Bargains, Claustrophobia, M/M, nothing on-screen but a fucked-up situation is implied please read summary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21997651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "It’s been ten years since the end of the movie. Jamie is now studying at a university, but he still believes in Jack, who hasn’t aged a bit. Meanwhile, Pitch regains control over his Nightmares and decides to search for the winter spirit and break him. Jamie, in one way or another, finds out about this and resolves to protect the Guardian he sees as his best friend with all he’s got. (Whether he succeeds or not is up to the author.) (non-con!PitchxJack, friendship!JamiexJack) (rape ~or~ attempted rape)"The only way you’d know that rape happened at any point would be by reading the prompt. (Otherwise, it could have been just regular torture! Whee!)Jamie goes to Pitch’s lair to rescue Jack. He ends up making a deal with the Boogeyman. (PROTIP: Never do this.) I wanted to punch Pitch in the face after finishing this fill.
Relationships: Jamie Bennett/Jack Frost
Kudos: 15
Collections: Bennefrost Short Fics





	Bargain

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 8/30/2013.

Jamie closed his eyes as he lowered himself into the dark hole he’d found at the center of a clearing in the woods, the only place where snow had lingered on the ground so far this winter. Soon enough he’d be far, far away from light—what difference would it make if he started finding his way by touch a few minutes earlier? Besides, when he had been looking at what he was doing, he kept seeing the hole replaced with bare earth in a flickering juxtaposition that made his palms sweaty despite the cold. Now, as he extended his arms, feet searching for some rough place on the tunnel walls that would support him, numbing fingers gripping the frozen dirt of the passage’s rim, he could still taste bile at the back of his throat from the moment he had seen his forearms bisected by hard soil, as if he had been buried alive.  
  
He found no footholds. With great, heaving breaths he pressed his back against one side of the narrow passage, bracing his feet against the other. By now, his hands were completely numb, and he managed to let go of the edge, of the surface world, by pretending they belonged to someone else.  
  
He tried, and failed, to suppress a whimper when he noticed the passage getting narrower. A hundred years ago, boys like him had died like this, hadn’t they? Trapped and vertically poisoned in chimneys—he shook his head. Whatever else the place he was looking for held, at least it did not hold fire. Besides, the boys that had died were not like him, not anymore. They had been painfully young, and most laws now defined Jamie as an adult.  
  
He slipped what felt like two hundred, but was probably only two, feet, and wondered if anyone could be an adult down here.  
  
Unlikely.  
  
After all, to get down here in the first place, he’d had to have known what the pattern of snowfall meant. He’d had to have been able to see the battered, rotting wood of the bedframe (only out of the corner of his eye, but it had been enough, more than enough). He’d had to have been able to see the hole beneath it, and see it all the way down to impenetrable blackness.   
  
Maybe he was too old to see these things perfectly, but he had seen enough. It would have been easier if he had been younger—smaller, he thought again, as he found himself able to press his forearms to the passage walls while rock scraped against the back of his coat—but nothing above, on, or under the earth could have made him ask a true child to take on this burden, to face—  
  
His foot connected with empty air and he fell, slipping out of the narrow passage into what felt like a vast cavern. After managing to stand up—he didn’t know if any bones were broken, but that knowledge wouldn’t do him any good now—he opened his eyes into the lightless space and said, as steadily as he could—  
  
“Pitch Black.”  
  
Faintly luminous yellow eyes opened well over a foot above his own. “Jamie Bennett. What are you doing here? You were so _fearless_ the last time we met.”  
  
Jamie gulped. His mind raced with all the possibilities that Pitch, as fear, represented. As the monster under the bed he had been easy to stand up to, but now? Now? He had had too much time to think about what he really was, what he could do if he didn’t limit himself to being some childhood villain. Jamie closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He understood more now because he was older. Let him be braver then as well. This was for—  
  
“Jack. You have Jack. And I’m here to rescue him.”  
  
The eyes widened fractionally. “Has his absence been noticed already? But why would the Guardians send you? I would think you’d be invisible to them now. You’re far too old.”  
  
“They didn’t send me. I noticed he was he was missing on my own.”  
  
“Hmm. How vexing.” The eyes turned away. “How did you suppose you were going to rescue him? You have no idea where he is, you can’t see, and even if you found him, you probably wouldn’t be able to find your way back to the tunnel you fell through. And I wouldn’t recommend conquering your fears as a way of shrinking this place. One wrong thought and you’d be crushed under ten thousand tons of earth.”  
  
“I—I didn’t know what it was going to be like down here.”  
  
“Of course you didn’t. No one ever sees this place.”  
  
“So, now I—if there’s anything you want, that I have, that you can’t take from me, I’ll give it to you once I see Jack is freed.”  
  
Pitch turned back to him. “Even if there was such a thing, how do I know you won’t refuse it if I free Jack first?”  
  
“Because I’m not you,” Jamie answered. “And because I know you have other ways of taking revenge.”  
  
Pitch hummed consideringly. “Do you plan to have children someday, Jamie?”  
  
“Yeah, I guess.” Jamie’s tone was wary. He wished he could see Pitch’s expression.  
  
“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t want them. I just want you to tell them that I’m real. You would do that, in exchange for Jack’s freedom, wouldn’t you Jamie? I’m not so bad as the monster under the bed, after all. Not when I could be so much worse.”  
  
Jamie tried to think. The deal seemed so simple. And the belief of children was obviously something Pitch wanted, so there wasn’t deception there—no, he had to take the deal. He couldn’t leave Jack here any longer.  
  
“All right,” he said. “You set Jack free, and when I have kids I’ll tell them the Boogeyman is real.”  
  
The eyes moved closer and a long-fingered hand brushed against his own. “Very good, Jamie. Right before you tell your children I’m real, you’ll have proof Jack’s free.”  
  
“Wait—WHAT? NO! That’s not—”  
  
“Oh, but it is, Jamie. It’s just what you agreed to. Now, off you go. And don’t feel too bad. A few years isn’t—usually—too long for a spirit!” Jamie heard Pitch began to laugh and he lunged for the sound, fists swinging wildly in the darkness.  
  
He hit nothing, and blinding light filled his vision with explosive suddenness as he fell forward. He scrambled to his feet, shading his eyes, trying to figure out where he was. Slowly, the brightness resolved into the snowy clearing, empty now of everything save his own footprints, even when he looked at it from the corners of his eyes. He sank to his knees, grabbing fistfuls of snow in his bare hands, starting to cry as it melted.  
  
By the time his tears stopped, or at least slowed, he felt feverish and his head throbbed with an ache the snow did not alleviate. He pushed himself to his feet like an old, old man and groaned when he saw that new snow had started falling. Of course. Jack was only three hundred years old. Winter could take care of itself. How long would it take before the other Guardians noticed Jack was missing?   
  
Could they rescue him even with Jamie’s bargain in place?   
  
Only the thought of its binding power convinced him to make his way back home—to live instead of die.  
  


* * *

  
  
As autumn ran down, Pitch had known he would have to release the Frost boy soon. Well, he had had his fun, and Jack had not, and he hadn’t expected anything else. Anyway, it wouldn’t do to have the other Guardians sniffing around his lair, wondering why winter was late.  
  
It had been an unexpected pleasure, though, to have that interfering last light appear in his realm just after he released Frost. Jamie truly believed that he had made a binding bargain with him. He wouldn’t be able to see Jack until the conditions were fulfilled. Jack would think that Jamie had outgrown him. And Pitch had a promise of child believers.  
  
He let out a delighted sigh. It had been a long time since anything he had done had worked out so exquisitely.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> psyaotic reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> In which Pitch gets his way quite nicely. The amount of fiend Pitch is pulling off is making me both pleased and gutted. Which is a very nice mix in this case. I love stories like these, they’re just so terrible that the feelings they leave last a little bit longer and sort of get sweeter with age. If that makes sense. Yeah, strange cocktails of emotion, that’s what I live for.


End file.
